ABC Unschooling

P, working on the really important stuff in life, like whistling ;)

So I've got a cool dozen topics to write on (we've been excessively adventurous of late), plus, this is No Impact Week (which requires a few blogs), but I'm short on time and sleep... so here's a quickie before I talk myself out of mentioning it....

Some ABC news report is (understandably) all the chatter on all of the homeschooling boards this week. Blissfully TV free, I had no idea. But, now alerted, I thought I'd address it ever so briefly, just in case its all the chatter in any houses reading P's blog too :) I say briefly, because, honestly, I'm just going to assume that everyone I know is above whittling life down to sound-bites;) And if you've been reading this blog, the detailed life of a radical unschooler, then you know the news report (as it has been described to me, at least) was kinda full of shit :) Unschooling is not unparenting.

Full disclosure, I haven't seen the show, its not really my thing, but friends have forwarded me the article. Perhaps my skimming skipped the snippiest parts, but it didn't over-offend me at all. Perhaps the show was world's worse? Perhaps its exactly what I would expect :) I don't know, I'm just unable to get worked up about ill-reporting.... yet again. I'm honestly not quite sure how anyone watches the nightly news and believes a word of it, so to watch a talking head dissect a parenting philosophy, between commercials, well, it seems obvious that something (like accuracy or honest portrayal) would go missing ;) Truth be told, I'd love a real challenge (ie, informed, researched) to unschooling. I think that would be a fascinating read.

Another friend forwarded this rebuke, written by an unschooling father. Seems like a pretty decent response. I mean, what can one really say to defend their child's wonderfulness, wholeness, wellness, based on one's own doing?!?

I know I should probably feel defensive, like our life"style" was on display in some icky way or something.... but I can't seem to summon up the gumption to get grumpy (though I totally "get" those that feel attacked). Especially after our glorious day today :) So, instead, I'll end with two tiny stories that, placed side by side, can at least muster up the illusion of a defense.

The first: In preparation for paperwork (we have to file for P this year) I looked at the list of yearly educational requirements (back in December). There was even a list for P's present age, preschool, so I curiously glanced through it, hoping some of it would have come up in our lives. Ummmmm, every single thing?!?! (Aargh, I just looked for the link and can't find it, I'll add it later...) At any rate, there were dozens of topics covered ... all of which life had thrown our way (before the school-year was even half over) and the Little Man has relished it all in a realistic fashion. Without a curriculum, without artificial constructs, without pressure, without schooling at home and certainly without sending him to school. This tickled me. I mean, I knew the kid was learning stuff and loving his life, but it was still fun to see that unschooling "works," based on outside criteria, despite ignoring those external expectations!

The second: Slightly more sad and sounding somewhat more properly defensive.... This one has been lingering in the back of my brain for a few months, but I'm really not fond of slamming schools. Obviously, there are problems. But aren't there everywhere? At any rate... No. Actually, at any rate nothin'. If sounding properly defensive of not schooling (towards a show I didn't even watch ;) means I have to whine about what I think traditional schooling lacks (even if it involves a cute P story) - I'm just not feeling it tonight. I'm just tired of defensive judgmentalism. I think that's why I am feeling a bit of apathy tonight.

Basically, when P tells people he homeschools (which happens almost everyday nowadays - "Are you in preschool?" being the second most asked question (right after "what is your name?")), we typically get great responses. Everyone tells him how lucky he is :) On the rare occasion the happy social buzz isn't there, its because somebody gets their fur in a fluff. You can positively feel the defensiveness creep into the space left by his homeschool answer. Kinda like when you tell someone you're a vegetarian? (The most frequent response I get to that? "I don't really eat red meat" (or pork or sausage or fill in your choice of semi-vegetarian stance ;) Its as if our sharing is equivalent to judgement. Which it ain't :) Its as if we're saying, hey, we homeschool, and you suck if you don't. We're vegetarian, therefore you must suck if you eat meat. "We don't eat much refined foods" translates to "Omg, you disgusting store bought cookie eater!" It seems obvious to me that we aren't saying this, we aren't thinking this, but to some folks, apparently not so much ;) A choice of "different" deems, to them, that my "different" is actually "better than" in my mind. That we're not doing it their way, because we think their way is wrong. And while these "different" choices do seem better for us we're not touching other people's choices with a ten foot pole.

So, I'm thinking this uncharacteristic apathy is nothing more than me being totally over the judgement wars. Totally over news articles that try to spark the fires of fury. Seriously. We're living our lives here, despite anything any talking head is saying. And that, seems like the same thing that everyone wants ;)